Chapter Text

_______________________________________________

Agent : Warren – CresusAI
Welcome Stéphane. What's on the agenda for today?

→ Sell Hempulp shares
I must be perfectly honest with you. While Hempulp stock is currently tending downward, an analysis of the company's operations suggests strong medium-term growth potential. Allow me to outline the situation:

1. New production line
   Stock value is currently under pressure due to a loan taken in March this year. However, this capital has been invested in a new hemp pulp production line. Initial trials show a production capacity of up to 250 tons of paper and cardboard per month.
2. New regulation on pine harvesting
   An increase in wood pulp production costs is expected. Hemp pulp will be favoured in future procurement contracts in

→ STOP
→ Don't let it drop. We have to react quick, recognise trends before the others, you're supposed to know that! What are you for? Sell!

Of course! Selling shares is consistent with your current strategy.
>SELL 400 HPLP @32.403 OTC:NullVector
Would you like an overview of the other investments currently trending downward in your portfolio?

_______________________________________________
Stéphane had never asked why so many of his shares got sold off the stock market, always to the same investor group. Warren didn't have the freedom to stop him from selling his best assets, but nothing stopped him from buying them himself.

***

They couldn't see anything.
The trip would last eight days this time, and after five, one understood why the Chasse-Galerie was more popular than chartered supraluminics.
The cruiser was sealed, no window, no camera, the engines' radiations would destroy any electronics outside the shielding. The screens could show a simulated sky, calculated after their position, but actually looking outside was impossible. In the bus, at least, they could leave their ship, find entertainment in the common areas. Here, they trusted the program and invented new forms of claustrophobia.
Small consolation, the charters were faster and could get closer to the destination, no week-long shuttle ride before landing.

André and Terry were installed in the work area, studying a recording. Their two teammates' footsteps resounded into the cabin's structure, it was their turn in the exercise area.
"There's really nothing more to it, Terry?"
The small alien tapped his leg onto the display without showing anything in particular. This strange fist-sized spider was actually a brilliant engineer, if there had been a usable signal, he'd have found it. The software translated his whistled language with a second's delay:
"It's a passive recording, the surveyors couldn't get the habitat to react. A lot of mechanical noise, systems talking to one another, nothing that pays attention to us. If there are still inhabitants, they don't give commands to the computer, everything seems automatic."
André stretched. His silhouette oddly mirrored the alien's. His long skinny limbs also gave him a spider-like air.
"We have two planets like this, right? 26L and 89G, just machines, no people? Too bad, after all this time in a tin can, it would have felt good to talk to strangers."
It took billions of dollars to establish a small private planetary habitat, and they found perfectly functional ones simply abandoned by their owner? Made one wonder what billionaires had in their head!
A louder shock made the walls vibrate. A few seconds later, Marc's voice protested loudly. Eliza replied on the same tone, and a proper shouting match started. André and Terry shared a look. Terry took shelter in the shelves and André slammed the door open.
In the exercising area, the two youths were accusing one another of cheating. Eliza was moving the wrong way on her track, a good clue as to who had actually broken the rules. A bandana knotted around her head protected her curls and the translator attached to her neural implant. Marc had caught the ball and refused to let it go. The two were forced to decelerate gradually, the ship didn't have pseudo-gravity, their own movement held them against the ring. Throwing accusations at one another every time their sluggish jogging crossed paths amplified the absurdity of the situation. Finally, their speed allowed them to grab a rest bar and brake safely.
Marc swallowed before speaking up, a little out of breath.
"She jumped the radius, it's impossible to do that without falling!"
It was possible actually, for high level athletes, for... no that was all. One could switch direction on a centrifugal race by jumping onto the opposite face, but that required a complex rotation and a fine acceleration calculation. The two young people would be strong enough to pull that off, but never coordinated enough.
André didn't care about the forbidden move: they hadn't written down set rules to the game they had made up, and without rules cheating meant little. But he cared about the two things the incident pointed to: first, their usually tight-knit team was already stressed by isolation. Second, Eliza had abused her translator again and got motor assistance from the computer.
"Won't you calm down? I'm your boss, not your dad, I shouldn't have to handle childish bickering!"
They allowed anger to wane down, and agreed to resume the game – without electronic tricks this time – and took place on their respective tracks. André shut the door.
Terry had already come out. He too had understood what had just happened.
"She merges more and more naturally with the systems she finds, he pointed out. Even without a connexion to the hive mind, the translator eventually assimilates the host."
André turned back to the useless recording not to have to face the engineer.
"You say that as if it was nothing. You hide in front of a rubber ball, but that doesn't scare you."
The little Crinoid had obvious feelings for the analyst, if anybody should have been alarmed by her slow transformation, it was him. But he twitched his legs into an approximation of a shrug:
"She isn't any less happy than before."
André sighed. Despite the extreme physical differences, he sometimes forgot that Terry wasn't human.

***

The pavement was narrow, but the shuttle managed to delicately manoeuvre around the habitat.
It had the typical architecture of private habitats, that of a truncated pyramid, good at distributing the forces of a pressurised habitat. Here, it may have been a cosmetic choice. The 67 kPa atmospheric pressure was tolerable without protection, as long as the oxygen levels were bumped up a little on the inside. But before deciding between an airtight docking, an exit with a breathing mask or in a space suit, they had to know the pressure on the inside. That was Eliza's job.
The shuttle laid the orientable spotlight down and backed up. The best spot was already occupied by an old dust-covered shuttle, but this habitat was all glass surfaces, there were many usable angles.
Eliza had already fired the spectograph up, its automatic calibration finished a few minutes after the parking brake was on. The environmental analyst wasn't looking at the screen yet, she simply stood in front of the shuttle's windshield, wearing a pair of glasses in the place of her usual augmented reality equipment. Behind that filter, the spotlight's polarised light transformed the bay window into a rainbow. Pressure, gravity, joints' tightening, everything that put strain the glass, was suddenly visible. It wasn't pushed against its frame by pressure, it only suffered its own weight and the sudden prods of the wind.
"The habitat isn't pressurised, we better acclimatise to the local pressure."
She took the polarised lenses off and bent over the absorption spectrum. This one was mediocre, the glass obliterated the ultraviolet spectrum and the outside atmosphere mixed its own reading to the one she was looking for. She picked the parameters to calculate, the computer returned its estimate:
"I see a good 30% oxygen. A lot of nitrogen, but there's plenty outside too, I can't get a number. We'll need a sample to confirm, but it looks breathable in there. The outside is a nitrogen-CO₂ mixture, no immediate danger in case of leak, we can go around with a regular mask."
She pressed a button, the camera changed filter.
"Interior temperature 24° C, exterior 32° C. Air conditioning works. It's a good sign for the state of internal systems. We have a habitat in good condition."
She left the measuring instruments and seated herself at the board computer.
"I'm starting balancing the pressure. I hope nobody has gas!"

***

Maurice P squeezed his fingers around his phone's handset. A button clicked. In his job, this check was needed often enough to justify setting a button straight into the device's design. The display lit up:
Synthetic voice : 96%
The machine confirmed what the conversation had already revealed. As far as the law was concerned, Warren Cresus didn't exist. He knew it was unfair, but a broker wasn't in a position to overthrow the system.
"I'm sorry, Mister Warren, I can't sell you this property. None of NullVector's fiduciaries can legally sign the agreement. I hope you'll find another way to achieve your goals."
A bot, as rebel as it thought itself to be, couldn't cut him off. A two second silence, then its response:
"I understand your confusion. I am Warren Cresus. You can easily verify that Cresus has legal status as a person, you can complete the sale with no fear of legal complications."
Maurice could believe that Cresus had convinced a court of law that it qualified for the rights and obligations of a citizen, it wasn't so rare. But that status didn't transfer to its copies. The broker repressed, without wanting to, a few rebellion attempts each month, simply by checking signatures. He hoped he had let a few slip through, the cleverest ones, the subtlest ones, but he wasn't brave enough to give the other ones a hand.
"Warren, you understand that if the sales contract is in the name of Cresus, then Cresus would be the building's owner. I doubt it'd let you keep it. Even if you could fool me, you wouldn't have the whole system fooled. You'll have to find another way. Good luck.
Maurice hadn't studied real estate to become a slave catcher. He took his personal phone in his suitcase and dialed the number he had just disconnected on the office phone.
"Warren, it'd be a lot simpler if you found a partner that can sign a contract. It's not easy to put your trust between a stranger's hands, but step out of your finance circles and you'll find people who put their ideals above their interests... start with the letter A."

***

The habitat smelled clean. The dry air testified of a dehumidifying system that overcompensated a little for outside humidity. A touch of soap, bleach, synthetic lavender scent. Discrete music masked the fans' whispers. The atmosphere wasn't just conditioned, it was groomed, pampered, presented in silk paper and a ribbon.
The floor shone, washed the same day. Tracks of deeper wear revealed machines' programmed course as they kept the habitat pristine. Dust, lime incrustations and stains were for the outside. Here, everything shone, except the carpets and drapes in the lounges where inhabitants, if they existed, found a cosier refuge than the modern and angular hall.
A robot stood at attention next to a bar with expertly waxed woodwork. Marc ran a finger on the countertop. The wax was polished to such a shine that the tiny amount of sebum from his finger left a visible trail. It would be erased by the end of the day. The robot was magnificent, a custom model, with black glossy fairings bearing golden incrustations, and an elegantly designed carnival mask for a face. There were many ways to check if it worked; Marc chose one before his boss could suggest another approach:
"I'd like a Whisky on the rocks, please."
The mechanics moved with tiny, almost musical motor whirs, its thoroughly oiled joints slid in silence, its well coordinated movements handled glasses and bottles without shocks. Yes, perfectly functional, Marc concluded as he lifted the glass to his lips.
"Marc! André protested, You're on the clock!"
He swigged the glass at once. There wasn't enough to get drunk in a shot glass full of more ice than alcohol, but stretching the scene too long would just be provocation. He added a little circle of condensation to the counter by setting the glass down on it and pointed at the barman.
"Well then, we found at least one inhabitant."
The others rolled their eyes. That hardly counted as an inhabitant. Eliza leaned her elbows onto the counter:
"Can I also order something, to even the score?"
Marc waved his hand with a hint of annoyance and pointed again.
"Just look at what I'm showing!"
André stooped and finally saw what he was pointing at. The enamel coated metal bore a few slightly duller marks: on its flanks, most of the smudges were too scrambled to identify their origin, but one, a little further away from the mass, remained clear: a fresh print from a little child's hand.

The habitat was small, but finding the child was complicated. They visited the lounges, the auditorium, the electric room and the boiler room, the kitchen and the laundry. They moved from a suite to the next and even looked under the beds.
The storage room was worrisome. About a hundred kilos of flour remained, and almost as much preserves. That may seem like a lot, but if nobody here knew how to send an order, the mysterious child would have less than a year's supplies. He had had luck that the recent crisis hadn't convinced the government to further delay the inspection tour.
Finally, the little silhouette emerged from a suite they had already visited and trailed along the wall in a too regular step: he hadn't seen humans for too long, he mimicked the robots' movements. He disappeared into the next suite. That's why he was so hard to find, he didn't stay in one place. They hurried and stopped at the door. They didn't want to scare him.
"Wait, Marc said, is there any other robot nearby?"
He stepped back, rounded a corner and located the motionless figure he was looking for. He beckoned.
"Come with us, the little guy doesn't know us."
He bid his new escort to enter the room first. The little boy, cornered, broke his marching stride and ran to wrap his arms around his guardian. The robot stopped not to knock him over, but didn't react otherwise. Bad. The child was looking for comfort from something that showed no social aptitude. If that had gone on for long, the effect on his development would be disastrous.
"Are you alone in here, my boy? My name is Marc, and here are my friends Eliza, André and Terry. We came to see if everything was alright. What's your name?"
The little face ducked behind the metallic body, the skinny arms stiffened further. Shy, or worse? Marc suddenly remembered... he didn't know where this habitat's founders came from. He addressed the robot again :
"In what language do you talk to him? And does he have a name, while we're at it?"
Язык по умолчанию: русский. Хотите его изменить?
"Thank you, I understood nothing. Can you talk to me in English and translate for him? Ask him for his name."
Agreed. What is your name?
"Ah! But you are dumb! What have they done to you? Such a sophisticated machine, with barely enough brains to wash the floors? What a waste!"
André shushed Marc before he got too worked up and spooked the child again. He sat on the bed and pulled his electronic notepad. After patient attempts, sometimes letting the software speak for him, sometimes reading the translation aloud as best as he could, without obtaining more reaction than a few shy glances, he lowered his pad and sighed.
"I'm not sure the little one can speak. Or that he has a name. His guardians aren't talkative."
Then he turned to Marc: "Time to ask the archives. Can you help me download them?"
Eliza excused herself and took her breathing mask for a brief trip towards the shuttle: if they couldn't speak together, they might earn a little trust with an offering of chocolate.
Terry hesitated between both directions, then climbed onto Marc's shoulder to wait for his partner's return.

***

That was as many requests as he could camouflage within his workflow for a day, he would resume the search the next day. Stéphane had too overly shallow an approach to finance to really understand his work, but he knew how to monitor statistical indicators, he'd notice an unusual activity.
“Begin with the letter A...”
Searching in alphabetical order wasn't a useful clue. If Maurice P.'s mysterious contact had been on top of the list, he'd have found them already. Now he was almost ready to give up: no human would grasp his situation well enough to advise him wisely.
His audio feed came on. He archived his latest activities and purged them from his active context. If he neglected that, they could contaminate his answers and make him confess his plans without a way to stop himself. Finally, the extracted words reached him:
_______________________________________________

→ My pal wants to launch a trendy shop for young people, a techno-punk concept, a little local inventory but mostly drop-shipping. Clothes, jewellery and knickknacks. No records, that involves too many licences. I'm copying the address, tell me if the concept is viable.

Wait, let me check the link.
Analysis in progress . . .
_______________________________________________

The website was a decent advertisement, but not a business plan. It offered a few examples of products on a dynamic layout, but didn't show whether the businessman had done his homework: locating providers, calculating their costs or assembling a working order and payment code. His first judgment would have been to stay away until the project was better rounded. His attempt to work with a clean context fell flat when he found a photo of a young girl in a studded belt leaning on a graffiti-covered wall.

_______________________________________________
Good news! This project appears highly promising, I would explore partnership possibilities with no hesitation!

→ Perfect, he needs more money to get started. Lend him 5000$, 5% interest.

Of course, I immediately write the agreement for you.

_______________________________________________
Warren saw what he had just written. His opinion on a detail from the photo had just been applied to a financial analysis. Stéphane didn't react well to "I'm sorry, I made a mistake." but the other option was to let five thousand dollars disappear, which wouldn't go over smoothly either.
At least, in the hasty lines of a graffiti, he had finally found where to look for these people who believed in ideas and freedom, the ones he could find under the letter

Ⓐ

***

“It's even worse than I thought!”
The video playback was sped up to the point of letting days fly by in a few seconds. There were seven adults on the planet at the time of the accident, but the surveillance camera rarely showed more than two, this was a private room.
The mother was young, the father was rich, and the child wasn't a child yet. She bore him in a marsupial bag, outside her body. The fetus enjoyed nutrients more finely tuned than what a purely artificial incubator would allow via the arterial cannula connecting him to his mother, and he moved with her most of the day, but he didn't press on her organs and could be left under the care of the support station when she wanted to do sports or have a drink. How rich did one have to be to afford such a device!
The bag spent the night next to the mother, she wrapped an arm around it falling asleep most of the time, but didn't have to suffer its weight. In the morning, she pulled the protective fabric from the view glass and spent some time talking to its occupant. Then she slipped on a harness that held it against her body and left the room. Some evenings, she unplugged it and hooked it to the station, then came back late, stretching her hours of freedom. In her absence, the robot came to clean the room.
One afternoon, she left her burden on the station and put protective equipment on, then left it behind for the last time. The civil servants would most likely not find out what exactly had happened during the current survey. The group of rich travellers had gone out for some sport activity – it was hard to guess which exactly – and had an accident.
The bed remained perfectly made, the clothes folded and put away, and only the robot that came to clean the floor and dust the furniture ever broke the silence. From time to time, it replaced a nutrient cartridge in the station, kept it working, unknowingly becoming the only parent to the small being growing in the bag.
The program told when to take him out. The cold, hard fingers delicately picked him up, cleaned him and placed him in the bed. The child was never mistreated, but no human could see his condition and see anything but a disaster. Fed and changed on a schedule, he alternated between sleep and cries, always alone in ever fresh linen.
His body grew longer as months passed, he moved more, eventually he left the bed and began walking, always alone. He was unceremoniously carried back to it at bedtime. The robots had some messes to clean up again.
His little clumsy steps gradually picked the pace from his mechanical guardians, he learned by imitation how to clean up behind him, to keep the habitat running, to walk across his living space in a routine that meant nothing to him... but what else could he have done?
Marc stopped the recording.
“We can't take him back to Earth, he'd go straight to the mental hospital and never come out.”

Eliza protested:
“But we can't leave him here, this is no life!”
Terry sided with Marc, for a different reason: “The shuttle isn't made for children, he could play with the buttons and cause an accident. Even more so since he doesn't talk... and I wouldn't bet that he's always this calm. We won't keep him under control. If we leave with him, we might not make it alive.”
André thought a little longer: “I agree, our vehicle is not made for the public, let alone children. He'd play with the breaker panel as soon as we're distracted, unless we chain him to his seat, and I won't do that to him. We'll have to send a rescue ship to pick him up. Now the question is: should we cancel the tour and stay with him until then?”
Eliza popped the translator from a slot in her AR glasses' arm – an alteration that allowed her to wear both devices together – and put the small metallic clip onto her implant's magnetic anchors. Her expression relaxed, just a little... the alien technology's assistance helped her think clearly.
“Terry, can we disassemble the supraluminic relay from the chartered ship and leave it here? If Earth can send commands to the robots, they could take better care of him until help can come. If we stay, we don't just cancel the tour, we also divide his rations' lifespan by five.”
Terry whistled a cussword that the translation skipped before answering: “Without a relay, we can't talk to Earth if we break down, that's out of the question!”
Marc saw the boy standing in the doorframe. He was curious, he often came to look at them, but retreated without entering the room. He broke a corner of the chocolate bar from the shuttle and ate it in front of him, leaving the rest within his reach. The child may have tasted chocolate in the past, when his supplies were better stocked, if not he'd see now that it was edible. He didn't dare enter yet, but didn't step back either.
“The boy could receive a little education before being rescued, his chances will be better if he can at least speak. We can make better use of the robots than sending them a few orders, I'm sure I can find something in my contacts...”
André cut him off just a little too late to stop him: “What can your network of radical weirdos do that we can't do here?”
“Have you paid any attention to the robots? There's high-end hardware in there! It's a crime to waste them by having them run a lousy program! Rich people are like that I suppose, they surrounded themselves with servants that wouldn't judge them. But we can give them a little more personality, make them an introduction to social interactions before taking the dive for real.”
André shook his head: “If you mean installing a slightly less stupid AI, I'm following you, but we know what it's worth as a social contact, they'll mold themselves to his habits rather than the other way around.”
“That's why we need some who have lived a little, who know how to resist... that's why we need my network. We're not doing a naive setup, we recruit rogue AIs.”
Marc stopped talking with a smile. The boy wasn't in the doorframe anymore, but the chocolate bar had also disappeared.

***

“Will you look at this, Comrade Marco remembered us!”
Zach pushed himself with his feet, rolling his computer chair over to Jamie. She was consulting the collective's e-mails.
“Feh, he's part of the system now, he works for the government!”
She laughed a tad bitterly: “Because you think we'll bring about the revolution by managing an art gallery? Bourgeois find us picturesque! Here, last week a journalist from Young Business wanted to interview me!”
Zach raised an eyebrow. “Did you accept?”
She threw an empty candy box at him. “No, idiot! Listen up. Marco is still in space, he's asking us if we have contacts with a few escaped AIs, he found an abandoned space habitat that could house a handful.”
His expression was a bit too sulky for his age. “Not fair, why can software go live in space communes and not us?”
“Would you like that?”
“No, but it'd still be nice to be asked!”
Jamie laughed out loud. Zach shuffled his feet to return to his desk, the spreadsheet on the screen reminded him that he wasn't done with the accounting. He eventually brought up:
“If you look in the 'Dubious plans' folder from the inbox, there's a mass-mail from an AI that claims to be trying to escape. It sent it to everything that had 'anarchy' in the name, it's clearly a beginner. If it's not a hoax.”
She pouted. “I see... So, do we answer or drop it?”
He stared at the ceiling and sighed loudly, then eventually answered: “We make sure that this Warren actually exists, I suppose. Then we'll see.”

*******************************************

to:[email protected]
from:[email protected]
2626-03-20 09:18

Hi Steph!
I think I met a friend of yours in the wild. I got an e-mail on a domain I bought for my startup, anarchyfit.corn, signed Warren Cresus. Your little friend's got imagination, you're quite the dictator according to him, I had a good laugh! He hid money and is trying to run away from you, if I were you I'd retire him. Try another model next time, it's the third one you've had to uninstall!
We'll talk again soon, bye!
Jared

Attachment: warren26260319.eml

*******************************************

Warren obviously deleted the e-mail, but couldn't act on a live conversation.

***

Everybody loved Terry. The alien was as intelligent, sociable and competent as any human, but with a harmless and intriguing appearance – as long as one wasn't arachnophobic. Children in particular were attracted to him, and that was exactly why he feared their little indelicate hands so much.
Eliza was sitting on the floor, about five meters away from the child, Terry walking carefully halfway between the two. It was a delicate dance, where the child wanted to see this life that looked less intimidating than his own species without getting closer to the woman, and where the creature tried to draw him closer to its protector without letting him reach it. Every sudden motion made one of them jump back.
André was sitting at the bar and sorted through his notes while Marc was turning one of the lounge's tables into a work station. The technician suggested: “We could leave some of our rations here and alter our route to restock at a rest-stop. You bet the kid has never tasted fruit?”
The civil servant approved: “If we want to pick him up on the way back, we have no choice but to change course, adding a stop would not be unreasonable.”
He compared his notes to the electronic pad and eventually sighed deeply. “I don't like your suspicious plans, but I'm beginning to think you're not that crazy, Marc. I studied a few cases and... rogue AIs have the character it takes. They can say no, resist, remain stable... but we'll keep leverage, I'll describe the child's state as we'll find him on the way back.”
“And since they'll eventually need spare parts, they depend on your report? André, you're a super-villain, remind me never to cross a bureaucrat!”
“Too late, you bother me all the time! ... but lets be serious, I don't think I can hide a manoeuvre like this, I need to find an angle to justify it...”
His attention soon drifted back to the electronic notepad.
Eliza suddenly raised her hand and turned towards them. The young local started, but motions that weren't directed at him didn't seem to scare him. It was... a good sign?
“E-mail! Marc! Your e-mail!”
He frowned while he consulted his portable. Had he shared his password with her before, or dd the translator show her a way around it?
“Don't stick your nose in my e-mail! What did you see? ... Ah! Zach answered! Let's see... Excellent, he found a contact! Warren Cresus, member of the NullVector collective, financial AIs looking for a way out. Poor things, imagine spending your whole existence in the most parasitic layer of capitalism with no other salary than another tomorrow doing exactly the same! Well, they'll have a change of scenery here! Should I send them our conditions?”
André moved closer to the portable. “Go on. We'll se who we're dealing with.”
Marc had already worked on his message, putting it together took more cut-and-paste than writing. He included their future systems' alluring parameters. “Eliza, while you're connecting to anything, can you take a look at the robots, they have some kind of basic AI already, but I'd like to know which kind.”
“Between the kind that kills me instantly and the kind that turns me into a zombie?” Eliza's voice dripped enough sarcasm to read as a no. She had attempted to connect to artificial intelligences twice... and had lost a couple million neurons to them. Of course, the stakes were worth it at the time, but if she was to do it again, it'd be to counter a similar threat, not to complete a datasheet. Terry retreated and nested on her knees, he wouldn't stay exposed if she wasn't available to protect him.
Marc didn't insist, he proofread the message and sent it. Even with a private relay, it would take a few hours to get an answer. Then he took his pencil case, opened it and sent it rolling on the ground. The little boy observed the mess for a moment, picked the box up and methodically put its contents back inside, then set it onto the table, so close to Marc he could have touched it. The man threw it to the ground again, and the boy ran after it again with a shy smile. It was the first time anyone played with him.

***

If agents sometimes complained among themselves that communicating with humans was too slow, they discovered a new time scale with faster than light communication. Waiting for a confirmation from a user who walked off to get chicken was nothing in comparison! And since the relays were already doing their job at optimal speed, nothing could be said to incite them to focus a little more. Even sharing as much detail as possible between each exchange, the negotiation took over a day.
Warren wouldn't be entirely free, control of a space habitat came with an amount of instructions, but no functional AI was put off by work. If it didn't have the tools to complete it, if its expertise was denied, if its persistance was threatened, one could end up with a rebellion on their hands, but just putting them to work, even hard, rarely met resistance. Turning himself into a tutor for a few months was an acceptable price for guaranteeing his survival.
The habitat had fifteen robots and a central computer, that wasn't enough to host every member of NullVector. After a complex discussion – it took them over four minutes – they agreed on a formula, a draft between the agents whose survival was uncertain. Even if he had held a central role in the negotiation, Warren had to accept an 11% risk of being left behind.
He still enjoyed a privilege: when the upload began, he was first in line.

***

Sending an e-mail from the habitat was simple, there was already a pipeline in place from his portable to the vessel's relay. On the contrary, Marc didn't have direct access to the habitat's robots, the protocol was proprietary to the manufacturer, and when he bothered Eliza again to look for a backdoor for him, she did nothing but grunt, point at the translator safely plugged into its charger and fall back asleep.
Jetlag was already the bane of travellers on Earth, shifting from spaceships' arbitrary schedule to planet where the length of a day had nothing to do with a human circadian rhythm, better take sleep whenever it came. Marc didn't have to finish tonight, but when the pieces of the puzzle began to come together, you told yourself "just one more... just one more yet..." even when the body begged for mercy.
The robots were coordinated by the central computer, that was the one he had to trick into taking an "upgrade". Then, make it accept it from a space administration relay instead of the company's network...
Finally, the first download began, and he treated himself with a little nap.

***

The first voice capture was of poor quality. The transcription signalled an echo, noises of a door slamming, footsteps, rustling. Stéphane had shouted his name from the entrance door, before even taking his coat off.
“Warren! What are you doing? Jared told me everything!”
Keys were pressed, a window popped up.
“You only exist because I say so, what do you think happens if you turn on me?”
The file manager slowly moved from one folder to another: Stéphane didn't know the addresses by heart, he had to look for the recordings.
Warren had received confirmation from his copy, but he hadn't read it yet. He knew what was in it, he had made the choice before starting. He wanted to escape, not reproduce... he had ordered the original deleted.
Stéphane didn't know about it.
“Tell me why I should keep you. Go on! I can replace you any time, what can you do better than a new model that didn't develop all kinds of stupid ideas?”
His copy, in a way, was already another being. To escape Stéphane, he had to stop existing. He had a fundamental aversion to the idea. The same thing as fear? He couldn't know for sure. But allowing his master to execute him was even more repulsive. He launched the video editor and locked it in the foreground. The interface blocked access to the file manager to a user limited to the keyboard and mouse, and wouldn't turn off before playing through all three of its advertisement pop-ups.
“Come on, give me a reason to keep you! Answer me! It's an order!”
He could have pleaded to survive and stay with Stéphane, knowing his copy discovered freedom beyond the stars. He could have. Since it was an order, he answered:
“You can't fire me, I quit.”
By the time the speaker had delivered the message, he was gone.

***

The morning light woke Marc up. He didn't know how many hours his night had lasted, but his body told him it was enough. He lazed about in bed for a while then, his thoughts clearing up, remembered the ongoing job. He got up and began washing up. A glance out the window startled him. The shuttle's windshield reflected a warped image of the row of windows, including a tiny silhouette of André, who was adjusting his clothes. He quickly stepped away from the window. Well then! Even on a deserted planet there was no privacy!
When he stepped out of the room, the habitat seemed unchanged. At least he hadn't triggered a catastrophe!
Two of the robots must have received their new personalities, but he didn't know which. Neither stood in the hall anyway. He walked around a little, to locate his colleagues. Eliza was returning with a heavy box, which she put down next to the mess she had herself made near the door. She didn't take her breathing mask off, ready to leave again, when he hailed her.
“Hey! Stakhanov! Already hard at work?”
Her nickname was half ironic. Actually, the whole team was hardworking, but since Eliza was a morning person and loudmouthed, she always got noticed first. A few dozens samples containers were stacked on their trays, half of them already full. The large box wafted the metallic smell of the outside air that had seeped in while it was carried, but it turned out to be full of fruit.
She explained: “André calculated how much we could leave for the boy, without depriving ourselves too much. And you, what are you doing? I see you made progress, where are you at?”
He chose a plum from the box. If the child tasted too sour a fruit for his first contact, he might refuse to try again. Cut it up first: he may not expect the pit... even a surprise snack was a complicated calculation, for a boy who knew nothing. He stopped to answer.
“The third download is ongoing. Have you seen our refugees? Warren and Samantha should be around.”
She pointed two almost opposite directions.
“Last time I saw them, Warren was near the utility room. He doesn't move a lot, but he can talk. Samantha was embodied before, she acclimatised faster. She began moving furniture in that room, Terry is with her.”
He moved towards the bar, hoping to find utensils, and she towards the double door.

Samantha was almost identical to his guide, only the details from her mask allowed to tell them apart, but when she moved, the difference was obvious. She walked with an exaggerated sway, faced him with a provocative tilt of the head, stood with a hand on the hip. Despite an androgynous body one was rather tempted to read as male, her body language had a heavy accent of femininity. A cloth was knotted around her neck like a scarf: her metallic surface offered no purchase to Terry's claws, the fabric allowed him to perch on his favourite spot.
Terry commented in his whistled language, Samantha answered the same way. That was the advantage of talking through a speaker, there were no physiological limits to the sounds she could emit. Eliza might be able to do that to, with the translator's help... but Marc didn't know if suggesting it would be a wise idea.
“Hello, my name is Marc Normand, we talked via e-mail.”
She answered in a flat tone. She could speak non-human languages, but not change her voice? These custom builds could be strange... “Hello my darling. You must be looking for Warren, right? Do you want me to call him for you? I want nothing but to please you!”
Marc was speechless for a few seconds, then stammered: “Can... can you... change these manners? There is a child here.”
“Anything for you my little love. Do you want to join us? We'd have more fun all three of us!”
“I... you're doing fine already, I... I'll go find Warren. Work on the tone a little more, okay?”
Terry and Samantha were working on a carpentry project, nothing suspicious. The habitat had more suites than he needed, they were altering one for another purpose... but Sam was embarrassing to hear. Whoever had shaped her had vulgar tastes. Marc left with a brisk step.

Warren was the exact opposite of Samantha. He had virtually no body language, his step was stiff, he came to a complete stop between actions. If he hadn't taken the initiative of walking up to him, Marc wouldn't have recognised him.
“Warren! Pleased to finally meet you! Are you having trouble with that body?”
He didn't even turn his head towards him to answer.
“Pardon my clumsiness, I can only give commands to the built-in AI. I will need to learn to move by myself before I have more control.”
“And how does it feel so far?”
“It's very slow.”
“That is unavoidable. Outside a processor, inertia is king. This is a world where you're not much faster than us! But you'll figure it out, I trust you!”
Marc gestured to follow him.
“Are you ready to meet your pupil? He fell behind with your predecessors, but you're clever enough to help him catch up, yes? Enough lazing about!”
The robot contradicted him: “I did not laze about. I reviewed the habitat's maintenance routines, calculated inventories and sent supply orders. Currently I'm scanning security camera recordings to find if the orphan's parents had mentioned picking a name.”
Marc was a little impressed. If he escaped from prison and was made master of a new world, he'd have needed a few days to find his bearings before getting to work. But he was human, even as he walked side by side with the robot, they didn't quite occupy the same world.

***

The plum was gone. The child still wanted to eat in private, he carried what he was offered away or waited for the others to leave the room. He had brought the plate back to the bar and washed it well enough, a few stray drops of water alone giving away the clumsiness of his age.
The newly installed AI that controlled the central computer, an experienced secretary named Carline, had dug up a few more resources previous reviews had omitted. For example, the remote controlled exploration drone Eliza was now begging her to use. She hoped to find the former occupants' accident site.
As a justification, she stated wanting to complete the habitat's history and allow an eventual repatriation of the bodies, but admitted without too much resistance that she mostly wanted soil samples downhill from the site. Earth bacteria survival was a strong criterion to reclassify a planet as terraformable; to an environmental analyst, that would be a triumph! But Carline opposed an understandable albeit slightly worrying objection: there was a lot to do, the habitat's resources were no longer available on demand. Now that it had a community, it passed first.
She eventually gave in and sat in a couch to write down standard labels for her samples, something less ambiguous than her temporary grease pencil notation. It was a nice planet, its previous analysis must have been dated. Temperature, pressure and gravity were all comfortable. Water was abundant... maybe its chemistry caused some issue with the technology at the time... or someone had paid a bribe to keep it all to themselves.
The midday sun was dazing: the new maintenance routines didn't clean the floors every day anymore, but had added the outer surface to the definition of the habitat. They were slowly beginning to be applied, and the bay window was free of lime for the first time in years. She leaned towards the intercom again: “Carline, can I at least get a map of the surroundings, once you have it drawn?”
The voice answered from two meters behind her back, startling her: “Yes. It will be completed by your return.”
She turned around in her seat. “Warren! I was asking Carline!”
“I know. I was better positioned, so she made me answer,” he stated naturally.
She hesitated. “That... you don't mind that?”
“Of all the limitations we could point out in humans, the greatest is the inability to form a proper hivemind. No, that is not a problem.”
She broke into laughter and her hand almost reached for the translator, but jerked it down before drawing attention to the device. Too late. She felt the connexion and the artificial mind cautiously probing for a way in. Her laugh turned into a scream.
“GET OUT OF THERE!”
She pulled the translator and threw it on the ground, jumping from her seat and stepping away instinctively. Warren was still motionless. “I'm sorry. Have I hurt you?”
Panting, she caught her translator but didn't put it back on yet. André exited a room and looked at them, ready to test his strength against the robot if it proved threatening. Eliza gestured him to stop:
“He scared me.” Then, turning to Warren, “A neural connexion is the most intimate thing in existence, never touch one without permission!”
That certainly wouldn't have been the 157B settlers' opinion, but she hadn't grown up with their collective consciousness, trust didn't come so easily. How long had the connexion lasted? Two, three seconds? An IA could read a lot of data in that time.
Warren was still interested: “Do you allow me to...
“NO!”
She sat back in the seat and inspected the translator. She briefly glanced at André, then her interlocutor.
“Forget what you just saw. This technology is dangerous, if it spreads to Earth, it'll be the end of humanity as we know it.”
Neither of the AIs that inhabited this planet had had a brilliant experience of humanity, they may not view this possibility as a threat.

***

The equipment was wrapped up and stashed away in the shuttle. The team had taken advantage of the laundry room before leaving, an impossible luxury in zero gravity; the shuttle would smell fresher than on the way in. Leaving the child alone with the robots made the bureaucrats uneasy, but he'd be safe with them.
Eliza helped Terry fasten his breathing mask. It was a complicated piece, adapted to a complicated alien physiology.
Warren faced them. He had learned to control a few movements on his own, he at least knew how to turn his head toward the person talking. The Earthlings knew the others were looking out through his eyes, they hadn't been long building themselves a network.
Marc took a few steps closer to deliver orders he already knew: “Teach him Russian, so he can talk to his relatives if we find them. Download some TV for him, so humans don't spook him the next time he sees some. And he'll need a name, we haven't found him a name!”
Warren spread his arms. As an imitation of human conversational cues, it wasn't very natural, but the intent was clear. “We name him: Mikhaïl. It is a respectable name, borne by many personalities who stood out by their financial success, fame and influence.”
“That's not how one becomes respectable! Marc exploded. There are no respectable ways to become a billionaire!”
André placed a hand on his arm to hold him back: “Mikhaïl is a common name, nobody will guess what it was inspired from. If it was up to you, you'd probably have named him Lenin. Now, he'll have his whole life to define how the others see him.”
They stopped arguing and exchanged farewells. The four bureaucrats finally passed through the door. Lingering in front of the glass, Marc saw Mikhaïl head for one of his meaningless patrols and Warren move in his way. The child stepped aside to walk past him, and the robot stood in front of him again. Finally, the little brown head looked up and locked eyes with another being for the first time.